GameStop surges on plan to buy Bitcoin

(Sharecast News) - GameStop surged in pre-market trade on Wednesday after the video game retailer said it plans to buy Bitcoin. In a very brief statement released alongside fourth-quarter results on Tuesday, the company said that its board had "unanimously approved an update to its investment policy to add Bitcoin as a treasury reserve asset".

At 1300 GMT, the shares were up 10% in pre-market trade at $27.89.

Dan Coatsworth, investment analyst at AJ Bell, said: "A significant beat for quarterly earnings put a rocket underneath GameStop's shares in pre-market trading. Its shareholders clearly believe the company is going to the moon and it's now one step closer, albeit the stock has a history of going up and down faster than a yo-yo.

"Retail operations aren't the reason why GameStop's shares are flying - they never are. This time it's about the company's move into bitcoin. The board has approved a plan to let the company invest in the cryptocurrency.

"In doing so, GameStop effectively positions itself as going down the same path as Strategy (formerly called MicroStrategy) whose shares have become a proxy for the bitcoin price due to its large investment in the digital asset. No-one ever asks what MicroStrategy does day-to-day as a business, and increasingly the same could apply to GameStop."